Granny Stripe Blanket

All too often I hear people saying “this isn’t your granny’s crochet” or disparagingly calling something handmade “granny” to mean that it’s unstylish, ugly or fussy. I personally think this is unfair to our collective Grannies, women who made so many beautiful things that still inspire us today. I made this bed sized Granny Stripe blanket with the hope of showing that Granny Style can indeed be a thing of beauty. I think this blanket is both modern and elegant, especially with its playful color note which for me harkens back to the fun and funky crocheted blankets made by many of our grandmothers.

The Granny Stripe is a crochet pattern that is made just like the iconic Granny Square, but instead of stitching around and around a center square, it is made by stitching back and forth in rows. The beauty of the Granny Stripe pattern is how effortlessly it lends itself to graphic elements, like bright stripes or big blocks of color.

For my Granny Stripe blanket I used the incomparable Madeline Tosh, Tosh Merino Light. As I worked on the blanket I fell madly in love with this yarn, it is an amazingly strong but delicate single ply beauty. Tosh Merino Light comes in an astonishing range of gorgeous hand dyed color, and truly any one of them (or any dozen!) would make an incredible Granny Stripe blanket. Above are a handful of colors I really love and considered for the blanket, the off white is Antler, the top stripe is Edison Bulb (both used in my blanket), then Citrus, Napoli, Oceana and Denim. -Joelle

Update: New Version!

July 2017

We crocheted this version of our Granny Stripe Blanket with just one Cotton Pure on Cone for the main color and one skein of Cotton Pure for the stripes. A timeless motif, plus a classic cotton… Perfect.

Materials

Size

Finished Measurements: approximately 50-inches x 56-inches wide.

Gauge

24 double crochets = 4 inches wide

Notes

The hardest part of this project is the first part – making a very long chain, and then working into the very long chain for your foundation row. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you I enjoyed this part, I didn’t! However, it’s totally worth it! Also, if you have some crochet experience, you can avoid all this with our step-by-step Foundation Single Crochet tutorial which teaches you to create the chain and first row of single crochets all in one step!

The pattern stitch is a multiple of 3 + 2, so if you want a smaller blanket, it’s easy, just chain less, making sure that the stitch count is a multiple of 3, plus 2 stitches.

Pattern

With Contrast Color, chain (ch) 302.

Foundation Row: 1 single crochet (sc) into 2nd chain from hook, 1 sc into each chain to end (301 sc).

(If you’re an experienced crocheter, you’ll probably prefer to make a Foundation Single Crochet of 301 stitches instead of 302 chains and the Foundation Row.)

Foundation Stripe Row: 1 sc into each sc to end. (301 sc).

*Switch to Main Color.
Main Color Set Up Row: Ch 3 (counts as 1 double crochet (dc)), 1 dc into first sc, [skip 2 sc, 3 dc into next sc] to end (you will have: 2 dc stitches plus 100 dc groups).

Main Color Granny Row: Ch 3 (counts as 1 dc), 1 dc into very first stitch, [3 dc into next space between dc groups] repeat to last space, 2 dc into last space and then 1 dc into 3rd stitch of ch 3 from previous row.

Repeat Main color Granny Row 31 more times.

Switch to Contrast Color.
Stripe Row Set Up: 1 sc into each dc to end (301 sc).
Stripe Row: 1 sc into each sc to end. (301 sc).

Repeat from * 4 times more.

Sew in ends and enjoy!

ps- For those of you asking for a photo of the edge of the blanket here you go!

Hi Molly & Joelle, since one year I'm absolutely in love with this blanket only waiting for something special to make it for. Now I moved in with my boyfriend and want to make this blanket to fit our huge bed. Could you please let me know how much skeins (merino tosh) I probably need for size 86,6" x 94,5" (size 220x240cm)?Thank you so much!

The materials listed here are correct. Joelle used Antler and Edison Bulb. Antler is gray/ ecru-ish neutral color and it can look more or less white in different light. If you are looking for a darker gray you could try Dr Zhivago's Sky or Antique lace.

I've been waiting for another besides myself to to notice that creativity in crocheting, knitting and sewing, and hard work by grandmothers and mothers went into making the home comfortable, cozy and beautiful. At the center of these tag lines I believe is simply an appeal to Western fear of aging. Thank you. Rock on.

Thank you for reminding us that mothers and grandmothers have forever used whatever was available in providing their homes with warmth, comfort, coziness as well as creative beauty. Fashion, fabrics, and yarns have evolved to help show off a knitter or crocheter's skills.Updated patterns prove the timelessness of yarn work. Rock on!.

I am finally ready to get started on this. But first I’ll make a gauge. I assume this means 24 dc stitches in the pattern given is about 4″. However, this purlbee pattern in ravelry.com shows a gauge of 32 stitches over 4″. I know it’s approximate. Based on the 302 stitches across, I’ll try for closer to 24 stitches per 4″ or 22 per 4″.

I wanted to check what the main colour was that you used in the granny stripe blanket. It looks grey in the photos, but you mention that you used “Antler”, which on the website looks more cream? Perhaps “silver fox” would give a closer result to the photos?

i really would love to make this blanket. however, i am dirt poor. unemployed. living off of my husband like we did in the good old days. this yarn is a bit pricey for me to indulge in.
could you please lead me to one that is quite a bit less expensive. i would greatly appreciate it.
thank you.

Hi… I made my contrasting color row of 302 foundation single crochets. Is it the same same Foundation Stripe Row: 1 sc into each sc to end. (301 sc). Or am I suppose to make an additional stripe row after the foundation single crochet row?

This is a beautiful afghan. I personally do not like doing granny square afghans because you have to make all the squares, then sew them together. This afghan makes it a lot simpler and fun to make. I am going to enjoy making this. Thank you for designing this patter.

I *love* this blanket but I can’t crochet. Any thoughts on knitting this blanket? I tried a swatch using the Open Star Stitch (Barbara Walker) but wasn’t able to achieve a nice straight line of the contrast colour. If you or your readers could offer any support, I’d really appreciate it! Thank you! Erika.

Thank you for the comment! Unfortunately there are no knit stitches that would mimic the crochet stitch exactly. However you may be able to make something similar by doing combinations of knitting 3 stitches together and then making three stitches. I would just experiment with various combinations of doing these types of stitches and off setting them every other row. Here’s a tutorial on making a bobble which is how I would do the 3 stitch increases; https://www.purlsoho.com/create/2013/03/02/bobble-5-stitch-garter-bobble/
I’m sorry I can’t find you an exact substitute but I think with a little swatching you could come up with a wonderful alternative! If you come up with anything fun I’d love to see!

I LOVE this pattern and cannot wait to try it…I am a huge fan of granny-stitch projects. I do have a question: on the “contrast color single crochet” rows, are we doing a ch1 at the beginning of the single crochet rows, or are we just joining to the main color and single crocheting the first stitch? Thank you!

Thank you for writing us, I’m so glad to hear you are excited about this pattern! The pattern doesn’t call for a ch1 at the beginning of the rows, just to join the main color and do a single crochet.
I hope this clarifies and let us know if you need anymore assistance!

Thank you for writing us! The only cotton that we carry that is comparable to this weight is the Cascade Ultra Pima. Though the Pima is slightly thicker than the Tosh Light, it would make a really nice blanket. I also suggest you take a look at Habu Dyed Bamboo if you’d like to make something in a plant fiber. Good luck on your project!

If I was to make this in the Tosh Merino DK, how many stitches/crochets (sorry – still working on my terminology!) would I need to reduce it by to keep to the same width? I’m assuming if I kept to 302 it would be too wide.

Thanks for writing in. I suggest making a gauge swatch by crocheting a mini sample of about 20 stitches or so. Measure the swatch and you’ll know how many inches approximately 20 stitches makes. From there you can figure out how to make the blanket as wide as you want. Best of luck and let me know if you have any other questions!

Hi, In the main color set up row you write “1dc into first stitch”, but in the main color row you write “1 dc into very first stitch”. Is there a difference between first stitch and very first stitch?
Thanks s.

Hello Sophi,
Great question! The reason it is worded like this is because in the Set Up row you are crocheting into the first single crochet while in the Main Color Row you are crocheting into the first stitch of the edge double crochet bundle. Ultimately there is no difference between first stitch and very first stitch. I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.
Warmly,
Marilla

Thanks for writing in! What a great project! A blanket of 110 x 90 inches would be about 3.5 times larger than the blanket we have here. If you are using Madeline Tosh Tosh Merino Light, you would need 35 skeins of the main color and 4 skeins of the contrast color.

You can decide on your foundation row number based on the gauge here. For this pattern the gauge is 24 double crochets = 4 inches wide and the pattern works over a multiple of 3 + 2 stitches. So for the size that we have worked up a 56 inch wide blanket begins with 302. For a blanket that is 90 wide, you would chain on 542. This could change based on your personal gauge but I hope that this gives you a good idea where to start!

Hello Ila,
Thank you for reaching out! I think this would be a great project for you. I would suggest knitting up a small sample to practice before jumping in, but I think this is a great opportunity for you to learn a new technique!
-Marilla

Great question! You certainly could make this blanket in sections and then crochet or seam it together. I do think that given the nature of the design that these seams would show. With that in mind, you could make the seams using the contrast color. You could do part of the contrast stripe to end a section, begin the next section with the contrast color. When it comes time to seam, you would use the contrast color to sew them together using our handy tutorial! I think that this could work by actually drawing attention to the seam and making it a design feature!

Hi! I’m needing a king size finished product, and I’m a noob so I’m trying to figure out how to do this. I’m thinking I’ll do a 600 stitch foundation row. Does that mean I need to chain 600, then chain 2 in order to turn?

Thanks for writing in! For this lovely blanket, the pattern stitch is a multiple of 3 + 2. With that in mind, for your blanket, you will want to chain 602 stitches and then move onto the foundation row!

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